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Wednesday, 21 November 2012

Why I'm not jealous of Chelsea (honest!)

Saturday brought
with it a collective sigh of relief from Arsenal fans, as the team reassumed their rightful place above Tottenham in the league table. If there’s one way to
silence critics of our season so far, it’s reminding our favourite whipping
boys who’s boss in North London. Whilst I’d love to gloat further, I have to
acknowledge that the sending off of Emmanuel Adebayor with little more than
fifteen minutes played made the game very one-sided. However it also gave the
new boys Podolski, Giroud and Cazorla a chance to endear themselves to the home
fans with goals in our most important fixture. I have previously railed against
Arsenal’s lack of clinical finishing this season and putting five goals past a
team like Spurs is a great confidence boost and message to the critics (myself
included). Individual mistakes again though allowed us concede two goals,
which, in another game, could have been vital. Hopefully getting our injured
defenders back in action and not losing any more will bring the desired stability
and consistency in the coming games.

The mood at the
club then is more buoyant than two weeks previously, after the team’s limp display against Manchester United. The week after the defeat saw the renewal of
Arsenal’s critics, commentators and supporters alike calling for the removal of
Arsène Wenger as manager. Almost to a man, the Arsenal ‘faithful’ agreed that
despite a vastly improved score-line, the feeling after this season’s visit to
Old Trafford was somehow even worse than that of last season (it wasn’t). It is
perhaps the most well known and most talked about fact in the Premier League
that Arsenal are now into their eighth season without winning a trophy: by far
their longest drought in the Wenger era. This is not a dry spell that you can imagine
would be tolerated at Chelsea, Manchester City or even Tottenham or Liverpool.

Premier
League managers today are chopped and changed faster than ever before, a fact
we were reminded of just hours ago by Chelsea’s unjust removal of Roberto Di Matteo. Only three of the current Premier League managers have been in their
jobs for over ten years: Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsène Wenger and David Moyes. It
is no coincidence that the two longest-serving managers are also the most
successful in Premier League history. Liverpool have employed six different
managers during Wenger’s reign and none of them have won the Premier League.
Chelsea have had twelve and have won it the same number of times as Arsenal.
They have also been beneficiary to £1 billion of a certain Russian oligarch’s
money. Manchester City have received a similar amount in half the time and won
the title for the first time last season.

Wenger
has recently been derided for claiming that Arsenal’s consistent qualificationfor the Champions League is a better indicator of success than winning a
domestic cup. We have played in the competition every season for fifteen years,
a record only bettered by one English club: Manchester United. Wenger has won
manager of the year on three occasions. He has lead Arsenal to two
double-winning campaigns and taken them to a Champions’ League final. Perhaps
most importantly he has built Arsenal into one of the most financially stable
football clubs in Europe (Manchester City’s latest figures reveal a record loss
of £197 million in 2010-2011, compared to Arsenal’s £36.6 million profit).
Wenger has always acknowledged the vast financial superiority that Manchester
United has over the club. Since the takeovers of Chelsea and Manchester City,
they too have been able to out-compete Arsenal financially.

The
trophy drought is a constantly growing thorn in Arsenal’s side. However, I
still believe that things are not as gloomy as most fans make out. For example,
when viewed in comparison to Liverpool, the team who dominated English football
in the seventies and eighties but are now into their twenty-second season
without a title, Arsenal’s troubles are put into perspective.

The
frustration felt by Arsenal fans is understandable though; the long-term
project that Wenger has been building for years still has not yielded results.
Seven years is a long time in football. I for one though, have always been glad
that Arsenal, like Manchester United, are not part of the recent football
culture in which teams change managers faster than kits in a desperate and in
most cases unfruitful clamour for success. It is partly this old-fashioned view
that makes me put my trust in the man who has been at Arsenal’s helm since I
was four years old. This is a man who does not just manage Arsenal; he genuinely
lives Arsenal. He has put more into this club than anyone and has led them
through the good times and the bad. His importance to the club is obvious on
the pitch as well as off. Arsenal’s football remains the most entertaining to
watch in the league. Even when they are not getting the results to match,
viewers still tune in all over the world to watch them play.

Wenger is part
of Arsenal and its long-term project (even if only he knows exactly how
long-term this is). To remove him now or in the near future would be
catastrophic. One man, however important, does not determine a club’s success.
There are millions of other factors and people involved in a football club. Besides
that, who would currently be able to fill Wenger’s shoes? And would they be able
to do anything differently with Stan Kroenke and Ivan Gazidis looking over
their shoulder?

My opinion that
Wenger has to stay has been strengthened today by the news that Chelsea have
sacked their eighth manager since Roman Abramovich’s takeover in 2003. Yes,
Chelsea have been more successful than Arsenal during this period in terms of
trophies. For many modern fans, that is all that matters. This trophy haul has however
come at a price. Abramovich has compromised Chelsea’s integrity as a football
club. Sure, he can afford to waste ridiculous amounts of money, like £50
million on buying Fernando Torres, or the payout the club had to make to
terminate Andre Villas-Boas's contract, and the team will still win the big
competitions, but Chelsea are essentially a vanity project; the supporters are
bought off with trophies whilst the people within the club live in constant
fear of the axe hanging over their heads. Not to mention the damage Chelsea’s
philosophy of hiring and firing at a rapid pace does to managers' and players'
careers. They remain an unstable club who are still a long way off playing the
best football in the league. No manager, however expensive, can get a team
playing a consistent, attractive style of football when given eight months in a
job. This is not how I want Arsenal run. All fans crave success, but it comes
at a price.

Arsenal have
problems; no one can deny that. But these problems will not be solved by
sacking Wenger.

In any case, even
if not everyone agrees with Wenger that Champions League qualification is
preferable to winning the FA Cup, surely most Arsenal fans would agree that the
‘sixth’ trophy, finishing above Tottenham in the league (a title we’ve held for
seventeen years) must at least be worth as much as the League Cup?